. Prosecutor Daniel Keitel defended the deal by saying that if they'd gone to trial, Rica may have gone to jail, but he wouldn't have had to return any money at all. This deal will "get as much of the money back to the public as quickly as possible," he said.

LOL. The career prospects of a man convicted of a crime of moral turpitude are zero. The odds that anything substantial gets paid back are next to none. It is probably better than locking him up which would sink the taxpayer in more deeply into the hole but the idea that the money will be paid back is noncents.

It sounds like the prosecutor had the right idea but he failed to realize that just because the guy isn't going to jail and has agreed to pay the money back doesn't mean he will actually pay it back. The only thing guaranteed now is that the guy won't go to jail despite stealing over $400,000.00

250/460 is a 54% compared to the big banks that pay only low single digit percentages back of what they steal that's enormous. Furthermore, that's better than most government employee thefts. Now private employee thefts often net zero back.

Crime does pay in this country, especially for those willing to do a few years in prison for millions or billions of dollars.

How do you spend/save that amount of quarters? It seems to me that if you went to your local bank on a regular basis with bucketsful of quarters to deposit in your personal account the bank would report such suspicious activity to the authorities. And quarters aren't practical for cash purchases of anything more expensive than lunch off the dollar menu. My guess is he had a partner who owned a business like a vending machine company or convenience store who would launder the money in exchange for a substantial kickback.

reported:How do you spend/save that amount of quarters? It seems to me that if you went to your local bank on a regular basis with bucketsful of quarters to deposit in your personal account the bank would report such suspicious activity to the authorities. And quarters aren't practical for cash purchases of anything more expensive than lunch off the dollar menu. My guess is he had a partner who owned a business like a vending machine company or convenience store who would launder the money in exchange for a substantial kickback.

Find a casino that hasn't completely converted to paper tickets. They will be more than happy to cash them in, and in some cases you can put them into the coin counter yourself. Worst case scenario: use a Coinstar machine and give up a percentage of your money.

That works out to about 29,000 pounds I would be interested in seeing how he managed to carry it off, and how he disposed of it once he stole it. You have to admit, carrying 500 Lb. of quarters to the bank every week is a little suspicious.

olddinosaur:That works out to about 29,000 pounds I would be interested in seeing how he managed to carry it off, and how he disposed of it once he stole it. You have to admit, carrying 500 Lb. of quarters to the bank every week is a little suspicious.

My theory is that Tom is taking the fall for a bunch of people. I bet taking quarters was a rampant problem, he got caught and took the hit for everyone. He plead guilty to taking $460,000 over three different occasions. It's just not physically possible. A million quarters takes some real big pockets to carry.

My theory is that Tom is taking the fall for a bunch of people. I bet taking quarters was a rampant problem, he got caught and took the hit for everyone. He plead guilty to taking $460,000 over three different occasions. It's just not physically possible. A million quarters takes some real big pockets to carry.

This is the current theory in town. He's covering for lots of people, probably a couple cops, managers etc. The prosecutor is probably connected in some way. I'm glad this is getting attention on the interwebby, and I hope the IRS is watching. Someone made $250k without paying a dime in taxes.